Well, this was the most disappointing gaming experience i've had in a long time, certainly in the PS4 era. Sigh, where to begin...
1) Gameplay, combat, challenge
The most important part of gaming for me is challenging and thought provoking gameplay. Cutscenes and a decent storyline are somewhat important but if that was enough, i can simply watch a play-through on Youtube and be done with it. This game offers absolutely no challenge. I played on the Spectacular Spider-Man difficulty and i didn't die once in the last third of the game including all Sinister Six fights. The boss fights are simply put, atrocious. In a world with God of War, Bloodborne, etc...this just won't cut it. Doc Ock is the final boss and yet he goes down approximately in the same time that it would take to stop a robbery or beat some random thugs. There's neither quality nor quantity. We have 5-6 bosses altogether and they decide to couple them? What a terrible idea. What good are 30 gadgets when every boss fight is circle, R1, triangle? I understand that the game caters to casual gamers but why add difficulty levels then? Compare the difficulty levels to God of War. You don't have to play ''Give me God of War'' but those who want a challenge can have a blast.
2) Side Missions, Side Quests
Chasing pigeons, what a glorious idea! Random students going rogue? 50 Demon thugs crimes...boring? How about 50 more Sable crimes? Tedious? How about 50 more prison thugs crimes? We have a short storyline, no boss battle worth a damn, no interesting side quests, so how do we prolong the game? How about doing the same thing over and over 50 times? Brilliant!
3) Miles and MJ gameplay
I will preface to say that i don't care and never will for Miles, Damien-Batman, She-Hulk, Terry McGinnis and every single ''take over the mantle'' or change race/gender of the same character. If i'm a tennis fan and i love Rafael Nadal, i don't want to see Rafaela Nadal, or Rafa Nadalesku, i'd prefer an original like Serena, or Kim Clijsters or Stan Wawrinka.
It's largely a criticism of the comics industry lack of originality and need to continue endlessly but the game doesn't shy away from it. I would not fault the game for the inclusion of Miles if they didn't make him a big part of the story including him becoming Spider-Man at the end. A cameo? Sure. But his intrusion of the story by having erm...crouch with him several times was immersion breaking. Same thing with reckless reporter MJ. Why stop there? Why not play with Aunt May while Pete is fighting Doc Ock and assist him by hitting Ock with her umbrella?
Changing protagonists mid-game can be great, the Last of Us a great example, but the change served the story. Here, you can completely skip those stealth missions and the story would go on the same.
4) The story
The sympathetic father figure turned villain Doc Ock was the best part of the game and even that was taken from Spider-Man 2. Out of all the possible stories to create, they couldn't write something more original or daring? The Sinister Six were thrown in so recklessly, and misused so badly, they seemed to be a part of a different game. It seems like they realized mid game they have no boss fights so they decided to add that just so Spidey has someone to fight. Ock goes full Dany in a 20 minutes, from wanting to create something good to breaking villains from jail and poisoning thousands of people.
Spider-Man is my favorite fictional character but this game didn't satisfy me on any level. I really wish it did.
